Game over as curtain falls on colourful coaching journey of ‘The Godfather’
Mario Tuane was coaching legend in SA, having coached all the big local teams
The death of Mario Tuane, just weeks after his 90th birthday, in his apartment in Vina del Mar on Chile’s Pacific coast, means another of South African football’s legendary coaches has died, not long after one of his many successors, Jeff Butler.
“The Godfather” coached in South Africa for about 30 years, but his surname was always incorrectly spelt as Tuani. He was born Mario Jorge Tuane Escaff in Santiago, Chile, in 1927.
He held the unique distinction of coaching Kaizer Chiefs, Mamelodi Sundowns, Moroka Swallows and Orlando Pirates.
His first league title was in 1979 with Chiefs, and then more than a decade later in 1988 when he finished the campaign in charge of Mamelodi Sundowns after Stanley “Screamer” Tshabalala had been fired midway through the season.
Tuane, who came to South Africa in the 1960s, won the Mainstay Cup with Chiefs in 1979 and Swallows in 1983.
Tuane coached in the whites-only National Football League and the part-time nature of top-flight soccer in those days meant coaches could straddle the black and white leagues across the apartheid divide, holding down two posts at the same time.
It was through his early association with the NPSL that “The Godfather” was named coach of the SA Black XI that played in the SA Games in 1973 and 1974.
In mid-1977, Tuane took over from Alex Forbes as coach of Pirates midway through the season and stayed for 18 months, to be replaced by Tshabalala.
Chiefs hired him for the 1979 season and he achieved the league and cup double with them.
In 1984, Tuane coached Swallows twice in one season with a brief stint at AmaZulu in between.
In 1988, he was back to coach Coloured Passmore’s Giant Blackpool team but, when Sundowns players revolted against Tshabalala, Tuane took over to successfully finish the campaign.
Sundowns were already top of the log and almost into the final third of the season when Tuane took over.
He did not want to lose his Blackpool income, however, and so left his assistant Angelo Tsichlas in charge of the other team.
That is how the Tsichlas family became involved with Sundowns.
Tuane also coached at Vaal Professionals and his last job in South Africa was at African Wanderers in 1999 when he was already 71 years old.
Adiós Mario!